—Lucian of Samosata, Peregr. 11youngadults.ccphilly.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Kruger...S.E....

MANUSCRIPTS, SCRIBES, ANDBOOK PRODUCTION WITHIN EARLY CHRISTIANITY

Michael J. Kruger

And the sacred books of [the Christians]were read aloud.

Lucian of Samosata, Peregr. 11

At its core, early Christianity was a religion concerned with books. Fromthe very beginning, Christians were committed to the books of the HebrewScriptures and saw them as paradigmatic for understanding the life andministry of Jesus of Nazareth. The apostle Paul was so immersed in theOld Testament writings that he even conceived of the resurrection of Jesusaccording to the Scriptures (1 Cor 15:34).1 The Pauline use of books (par-ticularly Old Testament books) in the course of his ministry is borne out inpassages like 2 Tim 4:13 where Timothy is urged to bring my scrolls, espe-cially the parchments.2 Moreover, gospel accounts like those of Matthewand John, as well as books like James and Hebrews, exhibit similar indebt-edness to the Old Testament, often citing from it directly and extensively.Such intimate connections between the earliest Christian movement andthe Old Testament writings led Harry Gamble to declare, Indeed it is almostimpossible to imagine an early Christianity that was not constructed uponthe foundations of Jewish Scripture.3

Of course, it was not only the Old Testament books that mattered to earlyChristianity. At a very early point, Christians also began to produce their

1 For more on Paul and the Old Testament, see Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in theLetters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), and Francis Watson, Paul and theHermeneutics of Faith (London: T&T Clark, 2004).

2 See discussion in T.C. Skeat, Especially the Parchments: A Note on 2 Timothy iv.13,JTS 30 (1979): 173177.

3 Harry Gamble, Literacy, Liturgy, and the Shaping of the New Testament Canon, inCharles Horton (ed.), The Earliest Gospels (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 28. A fuller discussionof the origins of the Old Testament canon can be found in Roger T. Beckwith, The OldTestament Canon of the New Testament Church, and its Background in Early Judaism (GrandRapids: Eerdmans, 1986), and more recently in Lee Martin McDonald and James A. Sanders(eds.), The Canon Debate (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002), 21263.

16 michael j. kruger

own writingsgospels, letters, sermons, prophetic literature, and moresome of which eventually began to be viewed as (and used as) Scripture.4Indeed, Christianity was distinguished from the surrounding religions in theGreco-Roman world precisely by its prolific production of literature and itscommitment to an authoritative body of Scripture as its foundation.5 Evenby the end of the second century, a core collection of New Testamentbooks was functioning as Scripture within early Christianity and was beingread in public worship alongside the Old Testament writings (Justin Martyr,1 Apol. 67.3).6 So prominent were these scriptural books for Christians thateven their pagan criticslike Lucian of Samosata in the opening quoteabovenoted the Christian predilection for writing (and using) books andthus were forced to reckon with these books in their anti-Christian attacks.7All of these factors indicate that the emerging Christian movement, like itsJewish counterpart, would be defined and shaped for generations to comeby the same means: the production and use of books.

4 Some have argued that Christianity was primarily an oral religion at the beginning withlittle interest in texts until a much later time; e.g. Helmut Koester, Written Gospels or OralTradition?, JBL 113 (1994): 293297; W. Kelber, The Oral and Written Gospel: The Hermeneuticsof Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul, and Q (Philadelphia: Fortress,1983). However, there is no need to consider the oral and written modes of Christianity asmutually exclusive. See helpful discussions on this point in Harry Y. Gamble, Books andReaders in the Early Church (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 2832; Graham Stanton,Form Criticism Revisited, in M.D. Hooker and C.J.A. Hickling (eds.), What About the NewTestament? (London: SCM, 1975), 1327; Graham Stanton, The Fourfold Gospel, NTS 43(1997): 317346, esp. 340; Loveday Alexander, The Living Voice: Skepticism Toward theWritten Word in Early Christian and Graeco-Roman Texts, in D.J.A. Clines, S.E. Fowl, andS.E. Porter (eds.), The Bible in Three Dimensions (JSOTSup 87; Sheffield: JSOT, 1990), 221247;Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (GrandRapids: Eerdmans, 2006), esp. chs. 2, 10, and 11.

5 William V. Harris, Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989);A.K. Bowman and G. Wolf (eds.), Literacy and Power in the Ancient World (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1994).

6 John Barton, The Spirit and the Letter: Studies in the Biblical Canon (London: SPCK,1997), 18; Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, andSignificance (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 254.

7 Lucian, Peregr. 1112; Origen, Cels. 1.3440; A. Meredith, Porphyry and Julian Againstthe Christians, ANRW II.23.2, 11191149. For more on pagan critiques of Christianity, seethe helpful overview in Wayne C. Kannaday, Apologetic Discourse and the Scribal Tradition:Evidence of the Influence of Apologetic Interests on the Text of the Canonical Gospels (Atlanta:Society of Biblical Literature, 2004), 2457; Stephen Benko, Pagan Criticism of ChristianityDuring the First Two Centuries AD, ANRW II.23.2, 10551118; Robert L. Wilken, Christiansas the Romans Saw Them (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984); and Robert L. Wilken,Pagan Criticism of Christianity: Greek Religions and Christian Faith, in William R. Schoedeland Robert L. Wilken (eds.), Early Christian Literature and the Classical Intellectual Tradition:In Honorem Robert M. Grant (Paris: Editions Beauchesne, 1979), 117134.

manuscripts, scribes, and book production 17

The fact that Christianity is so fundamentally shaped by a vivid textualculture means that any account of its origins and development must appre-ciate and reckon with its bookishness. However, despite this reality, mostresearch into the origins of Christianity has concerned itself with the con-tent of early Christian writings and not so much with the vehicle of earlyChristian writingsthe physical book itself. While issues like authorship,date, and provenance of writings have received abundant scholarly atten-tion, issues like the production, publication, and circulation of these writ-ings have received dramatically less consideration.8 Thus, it is the goal ofthis chapter to restore an appreciation for the physicality of early Chris-tian literature, seeing these books as artifacts in their own right and notsimply carriers of historical information where the husk can be easily dis-carded. Indeed, when the physical and visual features of these texts areexamined we quickly realize that they are not at all disposable husks butprovide a fresh window into the literary culture of early Christianity, thedevelopment of the New Testament canon, and the expansion of the infantchurch.

Given the distinctive focus of this chapter on Christian book-production,it is important to acknowledge from the outset the scope of our study.Although the larger trends of Greco-Roman book production form a vitalbackground and context for Christian book production, there will not be aspace here to enter into that world in any substantive detail.9 Thus, we shallbe restricting ourselves primarily to the discussion of distinctively Christiantexts, making explicit appeal to Greco-Roman writings as the situationwarrants. Moreover, even within the world of Christian book production, wewill be focusing primarily on those writings that eventually became part ofthe New Testament canon. It is the New Testament manuscripts themselvesthat will occupy most of our attention since they form the foundationaldocuments for the early Christian movement.

8 Of course, this has begun to change in recent years. In addition to Harry Gambles excel-lent study, Books and Readers in the Early Church. See also David Trobisch, The First Editionof the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Kim Haines-Eitzen, Guardiansof Letters: Literacy, Power, and the Transmitters of Early Christian Literature (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2000); Larry W. Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts andChristian Origins (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006); Thomas J. Kraus and Tobias Nicklas (eds.),New Testament Manuscripts: Their Texts and Their World (TENTS 2; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2006).

9 Standard treatments of the Greco-Roman book include W. Schubart, Das Buch bei denGriechen und Rmern (2nd ed.; ed. E. Paul; Heidelberg: Schneider, 1962); F.G. Kenyon, Booksand Readers in Ancient Greece and Rome (2nd ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1932); H. Blanck, DasBuch in der Antike (Munich: Beck, 1992).


1. The Production of Christian Books

Our study will begin with an examination of the physical form of early Chris-tian books. We will take into account how these books were constructed,the writing material used, the style of handwriting, and other noteworthyinscriptional features.

1.1. Form

The most notable feature of the early Christian book was that it was almostalways in the form of a codex.10 The primary form of a book in the broaderGreco-Roman world was the scroll (or roll), which was made from sheets ofpapyrus or parchment pasted together (end to end) in a long strip and rolledup.11 Writing was done only on the inside of the scroll so that when it wasrolled up the words were protected.12 The codex, in contrast, was createdby taking a stack of papyrus or parchment leaves, folding them in half, andbinding them at the spine. This format allowed for the traditional leaf bookwith writing on both sides of each page. Such a single-quire codex couldhold a maximum of about 250 pages (approximately 125 leaves) before the

10 Relevant works on the codex include A. Blanchard (ed.), Les dbuts du codex (Turnhout:Brepols, 1989); C.H. Roberts and T.C. Skeat, The Birth of the Codex (London: Oxford Univer-sity Press, 1987); E.G. Turner, The Typology of the Early Codex (Philadelphia: University ofPennsylvania Press, 1977); T.C. Skeat, The Origin of the Christian Codex, ZPE 102 (1994): 263268; H.A. Sanders, The Beginnings of the Modern Book, University of Michigan QuarterlyReview 44, no. 15 (1938): 95111; C.C. McCown, Codex and Roll in the New Testament, HTR34 (1941): 219250; L.W. Hurtado, The Earliest Evidence of an Emerging Christian Materialand Visual Culture: The Codex, the Nomina Sacra, and the Staurogram, in Stephen G. Wilsonand Michael Desjardins (eds.), Text and Artifact in the Religions of Mediterranean Antiquity:Essays in Honour of Peter Richardson (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2000), 271288; S.R. Llewelyn, The Development of the Codex, in S.R. Llewelyn and R.A. Kearsley (ed.),New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity. Vol. 7: A Review of the Greek Inscriptions andPapyri Published in 19821983 (North Ryde, NSW: Macquarie University Ancient History Doc-umentary Research Center, 1994), 249256; Graham N. Stanton, Why Were Early ChristiansAddicted to the Codex?, a chapter in his Jesus and Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 2004), 165191; Eldon J. Epp, The Codex and Literacy in early Christianity atOxyrhynchus: Issues Raised by Harry Y. Gambles Books and Readers in the Early Church, inCharles Prebish (ed.), Critical Review of Books in Religion 1997 (Atlanta: AAR and SBL, 1997),1537.

11 A helpful discussion of scrolls is found in Gamble, Books and Readers, 4348; and morerecently in William A. Johnson, Bookrolls and Scribes in Oxyrhynchus (Toronto: University ofToronto Press, 2004).

12 Occasionally, scrolls were reused and writing was done also on the backside (or out-side) of the parchment or papyrus. Such a scroll, known as an opisthograph, is likely referredto by Pliny the Younger (Ep. 3.5.17).


binding at the spine became overtaxed and the central pages of the codexwould protrude out too far when the book was closed.13 Many of our earliestpapyrus codicessuch as P46 (Paul), P47 (Revelation), and P75 (John andLuke)were single-quire in their construction.14 Larger volumes, like P45(four gospels and Acts), often used a multiple-quire codex that was made upof numerous single-quire units (often between 412 pages each) all boundtogether at the spine. However, sometimes a multiple-quire codex was alsoused for smaller works like P66, a late second-century codex containing onlythe gospel of John, suggesting that the multiple-quire format might go backwell into the second century.15

It is now well established among modern scholars that early Christiansnot only preferred the codex instead of the roll, but they did so at a remark-ably early point. Prior generations of scholars, limited by the amount ofmanuscript evidence at their disposal, originally considered the codexto be a rather late development.16 But various manuscript discoveriesparticularly documents like P52 (gospel of John),17 Papyrus Egerton 2 (apoc-ryphal gospel),18 and P.Yale 1 (Genesis)19indicate that the codex was the

13 Some single-quire codices could hold even more, e.g., P. Milan Vogliano V, a Copticedition of Pauls letters, contains more than 280 pages. For more on the capacity of suchcodices, see Roberts and Skeat, Birth of the Codex, 6566; Turner, Typology of the Early Codex,5560.

14 T.C. Skeat, The Oldest Manuscripts of the Four Gospels?, NTS 43 (1997): 134, arguesthat P4, P64, and P67 are all from the same single-quire codex which contained all four gospels.If so, then this would be an example of how single-quire codices could be used for quitesizeable volumes. Skeat has been challenged in recent years by Peter M. Head, Is P4, P64,and P67 the Oldest Manuscript of the Four Gospels? A Response to T.C. Skeat, NTS 51 (2005):450457.

15 Some have suggested that P66 is even in the first half of the second century; seeHerbert Hunger, Zur Datierung des Papyrus Bodmer II (P66), Anzeiger der sterreichischenAkademie der Wissenschaften 4 (1960): 1233.

16 E.g. C.R. Gregory, Canon and Text of the New Testament (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1907),declared, I am inclined to think that this change [from roll to codex] was made about the endof the third or the beginning of the fourth century (322). In fact, he viewed codex Sinaiticusand Vaticanus as some of the first codices to be made. For discussion, see McCown, Codexand Roll, 219221.

17 C.H. Roberts, An Unpublished Fragment of the Fourth Gospel in the John RylandsLibrary, BJRL 20 (1936): 4555.

18 The key works on this gospel include, G. Mayeda, Das Leben-Jesu-Fragment PapyrusEgerton 2 und seine Stellung in der urchristlichen Literaturgeschichte (Bern: Paul Haupt,1946); Jon B. Daniels, The Egerton Gospel: Its Place in Early Christianity (unpublishedPh.D. Dissertation, Claremont Graduate School, 1990); C.H. Dodd, A New Gospel, BJRL 20(1936): 5692; H.I. Bell and T.C. Skeat, Fragments of an Unknown Gospel and Other EarlyChristian Papyri (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1935); and most recently ThomasKraus, Michael J. Kruger, and Tobias Nicklas, Gospel Fragments (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 2008), see section one.

19 C.H. Roberts, P Yale 1 and the Early Christian Book, AStP 1 (1966): 2528.


widely established Christian practice by the early second century, if not latein the first.20 So dominant was the Christian preference for the codex, inthe face of a broader Greco-Roman world that continued to use the rollfor centuries to come,21 that some have even suggested that the codex mayhave been a Christian invention.22 It was not until the fourth century andbeyond that the rest of the ancient world began to prefer the codex to theroll, something Christians had done centuries earlier.23

With these considerations in mind, the question of why Christians pre-ferred the codex has been widely debated. Suggestions that the codex waschosen for practical advantages (convenience, size, cost) or for socio-eco-nomic reasons (the lack of education among Christians made the informalcodex more palatable) have been largely considered inadequate.24 Althoughsuch factors may have played some role, they would only allow an incremen-tal and gradual transition to the codex over many years, and thus cannotaccount for the fact that the transition to the codex was rather abrupt, early,and widespread.25 A more foundational and influential cause is needed to

20 Roberts and Skeat confirmed the early dominance of the codex by showing how itwas the format of choice for Christians from the very beginning of Christian book produc-tion (Birth of the Codex, 3844). This early date has been challenged by J. van Haelst, Lesorigines du codex, in A. Blanchard (ed.), Les dbuts du codex (Turnhout: Brepols, 1989),1336, where he argues for a later date for some of these manuscripts. E.G. Turner, GreekPapyri: An Introduction (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 10, also cautions against exces-sively early dates. However, T.C. Skeat, Early Christian Book-Production, in G.W.H. Lampe(ed.), The Cambridge History of the Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969),5479, and Roberts, P Yale 1 and the Early Christian Book, 2528, maintain an early dateby appealing to the discovery of P.Yale 1, the papyrus codex containing Genesis, whichdates from 80100ce. Moreover, recent manuscript discoveries continue to confirm thedominance of the codex. Between 1997 and 1999, a number of early manuscripts fromOxyrhynchus were discovered and were all on codices: P.Oxy. 44034404 (Matthew); P.Oxy44454448 (John); P.Oxy. 44944500 (fragments of Matthew, Luke, Acts, Romans, Hebrewsand Revelation).

21 See statistics offered by Hurtado, Earliest Christian Artifacts, 4453.22 Skeat, Early Christian Book Production, 68. See discussion in McCown, Codex and

Roll in the New Testament, 219221. Of course, now it is well-accepted that the codex waslikely a Roman invention (see Roberts and Skeat, Birth of the Codex, 1523).

23 Roberts and Skeat, Birth of the Codex, 3537.24 Roberts and Skeat, Birth of the Codex, 4553; Hurtado, Earliest Christian Artifacts, 6369;

T.C. Skeat, The Length of the Standard Papyrus Roll and the Cost Advantage of the Codex,ZPE 45 (1982): 169175.

25 Other theories about the origin of the codex suffer from some of the same problems.For example, Epp (Codex and Literacy, 1537) and Michael McCormick, The Birth ofthe Codex and the Apostolic Life-Style, Scriptorium 39 (1985): 150158, suggest the codexwas established by its use in the travels of itinerant missionaries; and Stanton, Why WereEarly Christians Addicted to the Codex, 181191, suggests that it was early Christian uses


explain the transition. Consequently, the most plausible suggestions arethose that link the codex with the early development of the New Testamentcanon. Skeat has suggested the codex was chosen because it, and it alone,could hold all four gospels in one volume, and thus set a precedent for earlyChristian book production.26 In a similar vein, Gamble has suggested thatthe codex was chosen because it could hold all of Pauls epistles in one vol-ume and allow easy access to individual letters.27 Regardless of which ofthese theories proves to be more plausibleand each has strengths andweaknessesit seems that the significance of the codex lies in its role inthe development of the corpus of New Testament books. As J.K. Elliott hasnoted, Canon and codex go hand in hand in the sense that the adoptionof a fixed canon could be more easily controlled and promulgated whenthe codex was the means of gathering together originally separate compo-sitions.28

The link between codex and canon sheds some much-needed light onthe relationship between the form of a book and the content of a book.When it comes to scriptural books, the Christian preference for the codexis so overwhelming that one is hard pressed to find copies that are noton codices.29 However, at the same time, Christians still employed the rollformat on occasion for other kinds of books, as in P.Oxy. 405 (Irenaeus,Against Heresies); P.Mich. 130 (Shepherd of Hermas); P.Oxy. 655 (Gospelof Thomas); and P.Ryl. 463 (Gospel of Mary). Of course, this pattern doesnot suggest that any book copied onto a codex was considered scripturalby early Christianswe have numerous extrabiblical books on codices.30

of primitive notebooks (e.g., wax, wooden, and parchment tablets) for recording sayings ofJesus or Old Testament prooftexts that led to the wholesale adoption of the codex.

26 Skeat, Origin of the Christian Codex, 263268. One is also reminded of the commentsof Frederick Kenyon: When, therefore, Irenaeus at the end of the second century writes ofthe four Gospels as the divinely provided evidence of Christianity, and the number four asalmost axiomatic, it is now possible to believe that he may have been accustomed to the sightof volumes in which all four [Gospels] were contained (F.G. Kenyon, The Chester BeattyBiblical Papyri: Descriptions and Texts of Twelve Manuscripts on Papyrus of the Greek Bible[London: Emery Walker, 19331937], 1:13).

27 Gamble, Books and Readers, 5866; Hurtado, Earliest Christian Artifacts, 6983.28 J.K. Elliott, Manuscripts, the Codex, and the Canon, JSNT 63 (1996): 111.29 E.g., during the second century we have only the following Christian scriptural books

not on codices: P.IFAO (Revelation); P.Oxy. 4443 (Esther); P.Barc.inv. 2 (Psalms). However,it should be noted that the manuscript of Revelation is simply a reused roll (opisthograph)and therefore does not represent a conscious decision to use a roll. Moreover, it is uncertainwhether the manuscripts of Esther and Psalms derive from a Christian or Jewish provenance.For more discussion, see Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts, 5456.

30 E.g., P.Iand. 1.4 (Shepherd of Hermas); P.Lond.Christ.1 (P.Egerton 2).


However, it does suggest that some Christians (in certain instances) mayhave reserved the roll format for books that they did not consider scriptural.Put differently, Christians not only had a general preference for the codex,but, as Hurtado has stated, Christians favored the codex particularly for thewritings they treated as scripture.31

1.2. Material

In addition to the format of early books, ancient writing materialwhetherpapyrus32 or parchment33was another important factor in Christian bookproduction. Papyrus was produced from the papyrus plant, a reed thattypically grew 25 meters in height and was primarily found in the Nileregion in upper Egypt (though also found in parts of Palestine). The stemof the plant was cut into long, thin strips which were laid side by side andthen another layer of strips was placed over them at right angles. Whenthese strips were compressed tightly together the juice of the plant wouldbe excreted and would act as a glue of sorts, binding the strips together. Thiscreated a strong,34 paper-like writing surface with horizontal fibers on oneside, and vertical fibers on the otheroften known as the recto and versorespectively.35 Parchment (or vellum) was made from animal skin (usuallysheep, goats, or calves) where the hair is removed from the pelt and then

31 Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts, 59 (emphasis mine).32 For more on papyrus, see Roger S. Bagnall, Reading Papyri, Writing Ancient History

(New York: Routledge, 1995); Turner, Greek Papyri; Naphtali Lewis, Papyrus in ClassicalAntiquity (Oxford: Clarendon, 1974); F.G. Kenyon, The Palaeography of Greek Papyri (Oxford:Clarendon, 1899); and Eldon J. Epp, The New Testament Papyrus Manuscripts in HistoricalPerspective, in M.P. Horgan and Paul J. Kobelski (eds.), To Touch the Text: Biblical andRelated Studies in Honor of Joseph A. Fitzmyer (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 261288.

33 For details on the history and production of parchment, see R. Reed, Ancient Skins,Parchments and Leathers (London: Seminar Press, 1972); M.L. Ryder, The Biology and Historyof Parchment, in P. Ruck (ed.), Pergament: Geschichte, Struktur, Restaurierung, Herstellung(Simarigen: Thorbecke, 1991), 2533; Richard R. Johnson, The Role of Parchment in Greco-Roman Antiquity (unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, 1968).

34 Both Skeat, Early Christian Book-Production, 5960, and Gamble, Books and Readers,45, make a point to dispel the misconception that papyrus is a fragile material. See commentson papyrus by Pliny, Nat. Hist. 13.7482.

35 E.G. Turner, Recto and Verso, JEA 40 (1954): 102106; E.G. Turner, The Terms Recto andVerso: The Anatomy of the Payrus Roll (Brussels: Fondation gyptologique Reine lisabeth,1978). When papyrus was used to make a roll, the horizontal fibers (which were easiest forthe scribe to write upon) would be placed on the inside, and when made into a codex, scribeswould often arrange the leaves so that when the book was open horizontal fibers wouldbe facing horizontal fibers and vertical fibers would be facing vertical fibers. See Turner,Typology of the Codex, 5571.


the skin is washed, soaked, stretched and tanned. Afterwards, an intensivescraping process creates parchment of various thickness and quality. Theresulting writing surface has two sides, a hair side that is typically darkerand rougher due to the remains of the hair roots, and a flesh side that tendsto be lighter and smoother.36

Although it is unclear whether the first codices in the broader Greco-Roman world were parchment or papyrus, the extant MSS in our pos-session indicate that papyrus was the material of choice in the construc-tion of the earliest Christian codices.37 Of Greek and Christian literaturefrom the fourth century and earlier, Turner found some 160 codices ofpapyrus compared to only 29 of parchment.38 Only three of these parch-ment codices could be placed definitively in the second century, and noneof them were Christian documents. In terms of just New Testament books,no parchment MSS are found from the second century, only one from thesecond/third century (0189), two from the third century (0212, 0220), andtwo from the third/fourth century (0162, 0171).39 In the fourth century, the

36 The terms recto and verso have also been applied to parchment manuscripts withthe flesh side generally being referred to as the recto (since it is the preferred writingsurface) and the hair side being referred to as the verso. However, such uses of these termshave created problems. Since, in a strict sense, the term recto simply refers to the frontof a folio and the verso to the back (Gamble, Books and Readers, 265 n9), questions ariseas to whether the terms should be used simply for the front and back of a document or forthe horizontal/flesh and vertical/hair sides. For example, in the apocryphal gospel fragment,P.Oxy. 840, the original editors unexpectedly referred to the front of the folio as the verso(because it was the hair side), causing a substantive deal of confusion in subsequent literatureon the fragment. For the original edition of P.Oxy. 840, see Bernard P. Grenfell and ArthurS. Hunt, Fragment of an Uncanonical Gospel (London: Oxford University Press, 1908). Formore discussion of its use of recto and verso, see Michael J. Kruger, The Gospel of the Savior:An Analysis of P.Oxy. 840 and Its Place in the Gospel Traditions of Early Christianity (TENTS 1;Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2005), 2122, 3536.

37 We do have evidence that parchment codices were known and used quite early inEgypt. P.Oxy. 30 is a non-Christian manuscript from Egypt containing the historical workDe bellis Macedonicis. This Latin text is in the form of a parchment codex and can be datedto the early second century (Turner, Typology, 38). In regard to whether the parchment orpapyrus codex was first, Roberts and Skeat declare, At present the question is wide open(Roberts and Skeat, The Birth of the Codex, 29). For further discussion of the significance ofparchment and papyrus when evaluating a manuscript, including P.Oxy. 840, see ThomasJ. Kraus, Pergament oder Papyrus?: Anmerkungen zur Signifikanz des Beschreibstoffes beider Behandlung von Manuskripten, NTS 49 (2003): 425432.

38 Turner, Typology, 3739.39 Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the

Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism (Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 1989), 76.


situation begins to change rapidly and we find fourteen papyrus MSS andfourteen parchment MSS. The fifth century reveals 36 parchment MSS andtwo papyrus MSS.40 From this point onwards parchment is the dominantmaterial.41

This notable transition from papyrus to parchment can provide at leastbroad guidelines in our dating of New Testament manuscripts. Any parch-ment manuscript is unlikely to be earlier than the third century given thefact that we have no extant New Testament texts on parchment from thattime period.42 The transition from papyrus to parchment also brought withit new scribal conventions, particularly the increased use of color. Althoughcolor appeared occasionally in earlier papyrus manuscripts,43 it becamemore dominant in the fourth century and later because animal skin provedparticularly fitting for the application of colored ink, resulting in deluxe vol-umes with decorations and miniatures.44

40 Aland, Text of the New Testament, 76.41 This overall trend is confirmed by a key fourth-century reference to parchment codices

by Eusebius (331ce) in his Life of Constantine where he records the request of Constantineto have fifty copies of the scriptures made on fine parchment (Vit. Const. 4.36). For morediscussion, see Kirsopp Lake, The Sinaitic and Vatican Manuscripts and the Copies Sent byEusebius to Constantinople, HTR 11 (1918): 3235.

42 Papyrus is less useful for dating because it continued to be used beyond the fourthcentury, even though it generally characterizes manuscripts that are earlier than that timeperiod. Examples of later papyrus manuscripts include, P3 (sixth century); P41 (eighth cen-tury); P59 (seventh century); and P61 (seventh century).

43 E.g., the apocryphal Fayyum Gospel (P.Vindob. G. 2325) dating from the third cen-tury where the red ink was used for the abbreviation for . See C.H. Roberts,Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt (London: Oxford University Press,1979), 17 n. 7

non-matching parenthesis).

44 The fifth/sixth century Vienna Genesis (Theol. Gr. 31) is dyed purple and contains 48miniatures illustrating the content of the text (which was written in silver). Some bookssimply had the initial letters enlarged and decorated with a variety of colors; e.g., fourthcentury Codex Vaticanus was given large and colorful (blue) initial letters by a later scribe;the first three lines of Deuteronomy, and the title and first two lines of Joshua were writtenin red ink in the fifth century Washington (W) manuscript; and codex Bezae used red inkfor the first three lines of each book. The apocryphal gospel P.Oxy. 840 also used red inkto mark punctuation, nomina sacra, and to outline enlarged letters (Kruger, The Gospelof the Savior, 4849). Red ink was also a popular color for early Egyptian Demotic papyriand was frequently used to mark chapter or section headings (e.g., P.Lond.demot. 10070;P.Brit.Mus. inv. 10588; P.Louvre E3229). For discussion, see Janet H. Johnson, Introductionto the Demotic Magical Papyri, in Hans Dieter Betz (ed.), The Greek Magical Papyri inTranslation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), lvlviii, and Georges Posener, Surl emploi de l encre rouge dans les manuscrits gyptiens, JEA 37 (1951): 7580.


1.3. Size

Although Christian codices were produced in a wide range of sizeswithheights ranging from 41 to 2.9 cm.the average height of codices in thesecond and third centuries exceeded 20 cm.45 This range is borne out in someof our most significant New Testament manuscripts, P45 (20.4 25.4 cm.46),P52 (18 21.3 cm.47), and P75 (13 26 cm.). The width of codices also varied overa wide range, but papyrus codices tended to be more narrow in width thantheir parchment counterparts, with the height often being twice the width(as can be seen in P52 and P P75 just mentioned above).48 In contrast to thecommon oblong shape of papyrus codices, parchment codices had a moreequal height and width, creating a more square shape.49 The more narrowformat of the papyrus codex is possibly due to the fact that the sheets of thecodex were typically cut from a manufactured roll of papyrus.50 The heightof the codex was determined by the height of the roll,51 but the width ofthe codex was determined by the length of the sheets that were cut (whichwould then be folded in half to form a codex). Although, in principle, thesheets of the codex could be cut at any length desired, the standard practicewas to try to avoid the seams on the roll where the papyrus sheets had beenglued together (known as kolleseis). Given this limitation on the length ofthe sheet, it would naturally create a codex with a more narrow width whenthat sheet was folded in half.

One noteworthy feature of early Christian books is the phenomenon ofthe miniature codex (defined by Turner as less than 10 cm. wide). Smallcodices were not rare in the ancient world and most likely were designedfor private use.52 Despite their small size, some could contain a surprisingnumber of pages.53 The advent of miniature parchment codices in secular

45 Turner, Typology, 1422; Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts, 162163.46 Dimensions will list breadth first and then height in accordance with Turners method-

ology.47 Although P52 is a tiny fragment, its overall dimensions can be estimated with a fair

degree of accuracy.48 See Turners group 8 (Typology, 20). Of course, there are numerous papyrus codices that

are wide (e.g., P.Oxy. 2258, 37 28 cm.) or have a more square format (e.g., P66, 14.2 16.2 cm.).49 The only parchment codex mentioned by Turner with a height that is twice its width

is the fifth century Demosthenes, Symmories (8.5 17.5 cm.).50 Turner, Typology, 51.51 Although the height of the codex was limited by the height of the roll, the codex could

be made shorter than the roll if further cuts were made (Turner, Typology, 5051).52 Roberts, Manuscript, 1011.53 The Mani Codex is the smallest known miniature codex and is about the size of a

matchbox (3.5 4.5 cm.), yet still contains 192 pages. For more discussion, see A. Henrichs


literature can be dated back to the time of Martial where classical authors(e.g., Homer, Virgil, Cicero) were put in the format of pugillaribus mem-braneis for the private use of the literate upper class.54 However, this inno-vation did not appear to meet with much success and in the later years ofMartials publishing there are no more references to the miniature parch-ment codex. The popular return of the pocket codex in the fourth centurycan be attributed in large part to early Christian communities. The fact that47 of the 55 codices listed by Turner are Christian demonstrates that it wasa favored format among private Christian book owners.55 These tiny bookswere often quite elegant and provided convenient and portable access tovarious forms of Christian literature. Roberts sums it up well, They arebest regarded not as amulets but as devotional handbooks for the well-to-do.56

The majority of the miniature codices are on parchment and not onpapyrus. Of the 55 codices Turner catalogs, 45 are on parchment, composingover 80 % of the known miniature codices.57 For that reason, most of thesetiny books date to the fourth century and later, although some do appearearlier (e.g. P.Oxy 849; P.Lit.Lond. 204, both third century). Also, miniaturecodices preserve a surprising number of non-canonical texts: the Shepherd

and L. Koenen, Ein griechischer Mani-Codex (P.Colon. inv. nr. 4780), ZPE 5 (1970): 97216.Other miniature codices also contained an impressive number of pages. The Acts of Peter,P.Oxy. 849 (early fourth century), contains the page numbers 167 and 168 in the top margin.

54 Roberts and Skeat, The Birth of the Codex, 27.55 Turner, Typology, 22, 2930. Curiously, Turner does not include P.Ryl. 3.463 which is a

page from a third century miniature codex (9.9 8.9), containing the Gospel of Mary, thoughthis could be because of some ambiguity about its original size. The fact that the vast numberof miniature codices are Christian has spurred speculation that the miniature codex wasa distinctively Christian invention. Roberts declares, On present evidence the miniaturecodex would seem to be a Christian invention (Manuscript, 12). Gamble takes a moremoderate approach, The miniature format was, if not a uniquely Christian phenomenon,one heavily favored by Christians (Books and Readers, 236).

56 Roberts, Manuscript, 11.57 This figure is nearly the exact opposite of the material used for amulets, where 73 out of

93 are on papyrus (78 %) according to J. van Haelst, Catalogue des Papyrus Littraires Juifs etChrtiens (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1976). The tendency to use papyrus for amuletsseems to have little to do with the dates of these texts. According to van Haelst, virtually allamulets are fourth century or later, and the majority of these are concentrated in the fifthand sixth centurieswhich would have been a quite natural time to use parchment. Thus,it seems possible that early Christians viewed amulets and miniature codices as distinctliterary forms requiring different materials. For more discussion of amulets and miniaturecodices, see Michael J. Kruger, P.Oxy. 840: Amulet or Miniature Codex?, JTS 53 (2002): 8194; and Thomas J. Kraus, P.Oxy. V 840Amulett oder Miniaturkodex? Grundstzliche undeergnzende Anmerkungen zu zwei Termini, ZAC 8 (2004): 485497.


of Hermas (P.Oxy. 1783 [V.H. 659]),58 Acts of Peter (P.Oxy. 849 [V.H. 603]),Acts of Paul and Thecla (P.Ant. 1.13 [V.H. 610] and P.Ant 1.6 [V.H. 609]), anapocryphal gospel (P.Oxy. 840 [V.H. 585]), Protevangelium of James (P.Grenf.1.8 [V.H. 601]), Didache (P.Oxy. 1782 [V.H. 642]),59 the Apocalypse of Peter(V.H. 619),60 the Life of Mani (P.Colon. inv. 4780 [V.H. 1072]), Bel and theDragon (Bodl. gr. bib. d2 [V.H. 323, 1083, palimpsest]), the Gospel of Mary(P.Ryl. 3.463 [V.H. 1065]), VI Ezra (P.Oxy. 1010 [V.H. 574]), Tobit (P.Oxy. 1594[V.H. 82]), and the Apocalypse (P.Oxy. 1080 [V.H. 561]).61 In contrast to largercodices designed for public use, the tiny format of these books allowedthem to be easily carried on journeys, quickly referred to in the contextof conversations (perhaps evangelistic discussions), and conveniently hidduring times of persecution (e.g., Diocletian). Furthermore, the abundanceof apocryphal literature in these miniature codices indicates that privatebooks may have been a primary means of promulgating literature that hadnot been approved by ecclesiastical authorities.62

1.4. Inscriptional Features

The earliest Christian papyri (second and third centuries) were not charac-terized by the formal bookhand that was common among Jewish scripturalbooks or Greco-Roman literary texts, but were marked by a more plain handthat could be called informal uncial or even reformed documentary.63This style of handwriting has affinities with the documentary papyri of thesame time period, such as its use of spaces between groups of words64 or an

58 The abbreviation V.H. refers to the catalog of van Haelst mentioned above.59 See also R.H. Connolly, New Fragments of the Didache, JTS 25 (1924): 151153.60 See also K. Prmm, De genuino Apocalypsis Petri textu, Bib 10 (1929): 6280 and

M.R. James, The Rainer Fragment of the Apocalypse of Peter, JTS 32 (1931): 270279.61 To some, Revelation was seen as non-canonical.62 Gamble, Books and Readers, 236.63 Roberts, Manuscript, 14. It is important to note that some literary papyri of classical

works were also written in a rather plain, unadorned, and non-callographic hand (e.g. P.Oxy.1809, 2076, 2288). However, E.G. Turner does not necessarily consider this as an indicationof low scribal quality; indeed, he declares that calligraphic hands are suspect It is notuncommon for the finest looking hands to be marred by gross carelessness in transcription(Scribes and Scholars, in A.K. Bowman et al. [eds.], Oxyrhynchus: A City and Its Texts[London: Egypt Exploration Society, 2007], 258259).

64 Examples of the use of spacing in Christian manuscripts include P.Egerton 2 (secondcentury); P46 (late second century); P.Dura inv. 24 (third century); P75 (third century); P100(third/fourth century); P115 (third/fourth century); P.Oxy. 1080 (fourth century); the ChesterBeatty Melito (fourth century); Codex Sinaiticus (fourth century); Codex Alexandrinus (fifthcentury). Examples of Greek texts that leave spaces include, Hypomnema on Homer, Iliad,


enlarged letter at the beginning of a line (or new sentence).65 Although thisstyle did not share the elegance and artistry of the typical literary script,it was not as rough and rapidly written as most documentary papyri. Thepractical and no-frills hand of early Christian scribes simply suggests aninterest in the content of the text that is more or less indifferent to itsappearance.66

Lest one construe the early stages of Christian handwriting as unpro-fessional, Roberts is quick to point out that a degree of regularity andclarity is aimed at and achieved.67 Although early Christian papyri cer-tainly exhibit a mix of literary and documentary features, Hanes-Eitzenacknowledges that early Christian papyri appear toward the literary endof the spectrum.68 Moreover, the fact that a number of early Christian

B.M. Pap. 2055; Thucydides I.2.P. Hamb. 646; and Menander, Sikyonios, P.Sorbonne, Inv.2272b. For more discussion, see W.H.P. Hatch, The Principal Uncial Manuscripts of the NewTestament (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1939), 3 and Kenyon, Palaeography, 2627. E.J. Revell, The Oldest Evidence for the Hebrew Accent System, BJRL 54 (1971): 214222,esp. 214215, notes that a number of texts from Qumran exhibit such spacing in order to markvarious divisions in the text, showing that spacing is one of the earliest forms of punctuationin the ancient world.

65 Such enlarged first letters were often employed in documentary papyri for the openingword of a text, for the name of the addressee, and for the beginning of new sections or sen-tences; e.g., two second century documentary texts, Gnomon of the Idios Logos and P.Brem. 5.However, it should be noted that such a practice was not unheard of in Roman or Ptolemaicliterary papyri: P.Oxy. 2161 (Aeschylus, Dictyulci); P.Oxy. 1373 (Aristophanes, Equites); P.Oxy.1235 (Hypotheses to Menander); P.Oxy. 1182 (Demosthenes, De Falsa Legatione); P.Oxy. 473(Honorary Decree). See E.G. Turner, Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World (2nd ed.; Lon-don: Institute of Classical Studies, 1987), 9, for more detailed discussion. Although enlargedinitial letters are found in some of our earliest Christian textsP.Egerton 2 (second cen-tury), P.Ant. 1.12 (third century), Chester Beatty Numbers and Deuteronomy (second/thirdcentury), Chester Beatty Ezekiel (third century)the practice did not become abundantor pronounced until the fourth century or later as can be seen in texts like Chester BeattyMelito (fourth century), P.Berlin inv. 6747 (fourth century), Codex Alexandrinus (fifth cen-tury), Codex Bezae (fifth century).

66 Gamble, Books and Readers, 71; emphasis mine. William Johnson points out that muchof the elegance of the literary manuscripts in the Greco-Roman world was due to the factthat the literary roll exemplifies high culture not just in the demonstration that the owner isliterate and educated, but by means of aesthetics the bookroll also points to the refinementof the owner In ancient society, that reading was largely an elitist phenomenon wasaccepted as a matter of course (Towards a Sociology of Reading in Classical Antiquity, AJP121 [2000]: 613, 615). It is possible, then, that early Christians, concerned not with establishingtheir own elite status but reaching to the common man, would have (initially) constructedtheir manuscripts not as objects of art or indicators of status, but in a manner primarilyconcerned with content and accessibility.

67 Roberts, Manuscript, 14.68 Hanes-Eitzen, Guardians of Letters, 65. The general distinction between literary and


manuscripts contained an impressive amount of punctuation and readersaidswhich are rare even in literary papyrisuggests that early Chris-tian scribes were more in tune with professional book production thanoften realized.69 In addition, it cannot be overlooked that many early Chris-tian texts do exhibit a more refined hand and literary style, such as a latesecond/early third-century text of Irenaeus Against Heresies (P.Oxy. 405)which has a handsome professional hand,70 a late second-century text ofMatthew (P.Oxy. 2683) which has an elegant hand,71 a late second-centurycopy of Pauls epistles (P46) which has a hand with style and elegance,72a late second/early third-century copy of Luke and Matthew (P4-P64-P67)which has a handsome script which is incontrovertibly literary in style73and a late second-century copy of John (P66) which has calligraphy of suchhigh quality that it may indicate the work of a scriptorium.74 By the fourthcentury and beyond, this more refined bookhand had become the norm forChristian texts.

A particularly important inscriptional feature of early Christian manu-scripts was the use of the nomina sacra. The term nomina sacra refers tocertain words that were written in a special abbreviated form in Christiandocuments in order to set them apart as sacred.75 They usually appeared as a

documentary papyri has come under criticism as some scholars have challenged the sharpdichotomy that is often draw between the two. For more on this point see, Turner, GreekPapyri, vivii; Roger A. Pack, The Greek and Latin Literary Texts from Greco-Roman Egypt (2nded.; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1967), 1; and Eldon Jay Epp, New TestamentPapyrus Manuscripts and Letter Carrying in Greco-Roman Times, in B.A. Pearson et al.(eds.), The Future of Early Christianity: Essays in Honor of Helmut Koester (Minneapolis:Fortress, 1991), 3940.

69 E.g., P.Mich. 130 (Shepherd of Hermas; third century) and P.Ryl. 1.1 (Deuteronomy;third/fourth century) contain a surprising number of accents and other lectional aids. Suchfeatures indicated that many early Christian books were written for public reading; for moreon this see, Gamble, Books and Readers, 203230.

70 Roberts, Manuscript, 23.71 Roberts, Manuscript, 23.72 Kenyon, The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri, vol. 3/1, ix.73 Roberts, Manuscript, 23. For a discussion on dating these fragments see Skeat, The

Oldest Manuscript of the Four Gospels, 2631.74 Gordon D. Fee, Papyrus Bodmer II (p66): Its Textual Relationships and Scribal Charac-

teristics (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1968), 82, n. 20.75 Studies on the nomina sacra include Ludwig Traube, Nomina Sacra: Versuch einer

Geschichte der christlichen Krzung (Munich: Beck, 1907); A.H.R.E. Paap, Nomina Sacra inthe Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1959); Jose OCallaghan, NominaSacra in Papyrus Graecis Saeculi III Neotestamentariis (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1970);S. Brown, Concerning the Origin of the Nomina Sacra, SPap 9 (1970): 719; G. Howard,The Tetragram and the New Testament, JBL 96 (1977): 6383; Roberts, Manuscript, 2648;


contraction (and occasionally by suspension) with a horizontal line over thetop. Roberts divides the nomina sacra into three categories: (a) the earliestand most consistent four, , , , (b) those that appearrelatively frequently and also quite early, , , and (c)the latest and least consistent, , , , , , ,, .76

Although the origin of the nomina sacra is unclear and still beingdebated,77 their significance lies in the fact that they not only appear in thevery earliest of our Greek manuscripts, but their appearance is remarkablywidespread across regions and languageseven apocryphal texts were noexception.78 Indeed, so distinctive was the use of the nomina sacra that inmany ways it identified a manuscript as being Christian in its origins. Con-sequently, there are good reasons to think that these abbreviations were notconcerned with saving space but functioned as a textual way to show Chris-tian reverence and devotion to Christ alongside of Godparticularly giventhat the earliest terms of the nomina sacra were , , and

Larry W. Hurtado, The Origin of the Nomina Sacra: A Proposal, JBL 117 (1998): 655673;C.M. Tuckett, Nomina Sacra: Yes and No?, in J.M. Auwers and H.J. De Jonge

lower case d?(eds.), The

Biblical Canons (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003), 431458.76 Although these fifteen are the most common, scribes occasionally experimented with

new/different words as nomina sacra. Examples of such variants can be found in P.Egerton2 and P.Oxy. 1008 (P15). For other examples of variants of nomina sacra see Kurt Aland(ed.), Repertorium der griechischen christlichen Papyri, I, Biblische Papyri (Berlin: de Gruyter,1976), 420428 and Bruce M. Metzger, Manuscripts of the Bible: An Introduction to GreekPalaeography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 3637.

77 For various approaches, see Kurt Treu, Die Bedeutung des Griechischen fr die Judenim rmischen Reich, Kairos 15 (1973): 123144; Robert A. Kraft, The Textual Mechanicsof Early Jewish LXX/OG Papyri and Fragments, in Scot McKendrick and Orlaith OSullivan(eds.), The Bible as Book: The Transmission of the Greek Text (London: British Library, 2003),5172; Trobisch, The First Edition of the New Testament, 1119; Hurtado, The Origin of theNomina Sacra, 655673; Brown, Concerning the Origin of the Nomina Sacra, 719.

78 Most notably, it appears the nomina sacra are found in our earliest New Testamentfragment, P52. This has been challenged by Christopher M. Tuckett, P52 and the NominaSacra, NTS 47 (2001): 544548. For responses to Tuckett see Charles E. Hill, Did the Scribeof P52 Use the Nomina Sacra? Another Look, NTS 48 (2002): 587592, and Larry W. Hurtado,P52 (P.Rylands Gk. 457) and the Nomina Sacra: Method and Probability, TynBul 54 (2003):114. Nomina sacra are found not only in Greek MSS, but also in Latin, Coptic, Slavonicand Armenian. Furthermore, they are widely found in apocryphal texts (P.Egerton 2, Gospelof Thomas, P.Oxy. 840), amulets (see Campbell Bonner, Studies in Magical Amulets [AnnArbor: University of Michigan Press, 1950], 185, 223), and other Christian literature. The rareexceptions occur in private documents, magical texts (e.g., P.Oxy. 407), or from oversights ofa careless scribe (e.g., P.Oxy. 656; Traube, Nomina Sacra, 90). For more detail, see Roberts,Manuscript, 27.


.79 Such an early and dominant scribal convention suggests an emergingChristian scribal culture that was not as individualistic and decentralizedas is often times supposed.80 When taken in conjunction with the unique,widespread, and early use of the codex (as noted above), T.C. Skeat arguesthat the nomina sacra indicate a degree of organization, of conscious plan-ning, and uniformity of practice among the Christian communities whichwe have hitherto had little reason to suspect.81 Epp agrees, [Churches]were perhaps not as loosely organized as been assumed, and, therefore, theywere also not as isolated from one another as has been affirmed. Indeed, atleast one program of standardizationthe nomina sacrawas certainlyfunctioning with obvious precision and care.82

2. The Transmission of Christian Books

Now that we have examined (briefly) the mechanics of how early Christianbooks, particularly scriptural books, were produced, we now turn our atten-tion to the manner in which these books were copied and transmitted in theearliest centuries (first through third) of the Christian faith. Since this sub-ject is far too vast to cover in detail here, we will provide a general overview,focusing upon Christian scribes and some key aspects of how books werepublished and circulated.

79 Tuckett, Nomina Sacra, 431458 challenges this conception of the nomina sacra.Rebuttal to Tuckett is offered by Hurtado, Earliest Christian Artifacts, 122133.

80 Hanes-Eitzen downplays the significance of the nomina sacra in this regard, arguingthat it does not provide any evidence for organization and structure amongst early Christianscribes (Guardians of Letters, 9294). She bases this argument on the fact that scribes werenot always consistent in the words they abbreviated. However, she overplays the amountof disparity in regard to the way nomina sacra were employed. To be sure, there weredifferences amongst various scribes, but the overall pattern is still intact (particularly asit pertains to the four main epithets: , , , and ). Moreover, even ifone were to grant that scribes were routinely inconsistent in the way they used the nominasacra, one still has to explain its early and dominant appearance. The scribal conventionstill demands an explanation, even if it is inconsistently applied. With this in mind, Hanes-Eitzens explanation that the nomina sacra originated from (and were disseminated through)only haphazard scribal relationships seems inadequate. If this were the case, we would expectthe adoption of the nomina sacra to be gradual and slowprecisely the opposite of what wefind.

81 Skeat, Early Christian Book-Production, 73.82 Eldon Jay Epp, The Significance of the Papyri for Determining the Nature of the New

Testament Text in the Second Century: A Dynamic View of Textual Transmission, in EldonJay Epp and Gordon D. Fee, Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament TextualCriticism (SD 45; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 288.


2.1. Christian Scribes

Although we have very little direct testimony about the scribes who copiedChristian texts in the earliest centuries of the Christian movement,83 theabove discussion has already revealed some key information about them.It appears that the earliest Christian scribes were not necessarily trainedsolely in the art of copying literary texts (though some Christian scribeswere), but were often multifunctional scribes who were used to copyingboth documentary and literary texts.84 These were professional scribes tobe suremeaning this was the occupation in which they were primarilyengagedand most knew their craft well, but they typically would not havebeen literary copyists who were employed in the commercial book trade.85Instead, it appears these early Christian scribes were often the type whichwere employed privately by individuals who may have varying needs, suchas taking letters by dictation, producing administrative documents, or thecopying of letters or formal literary pieces.

Such multifunctional (and largely private) scribes were common in theGreco-Roman world as can be seen by the account of a certain clerk/secretary Chariton of Aphrodisias who did administrative work for a lawyer

83 Hanes-Eitzen, Guardians of Letters, 68. For some other general works on scribes in theancient world, see E. Randolph Richards, The Secretary in the Letters of Paul (WUNT 2.42;Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1991); L.D. Reynolds and N.G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide tothe Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968); Elaine Fan-tham, Roman Literary Culture from Cicero to Apuleius (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, 1996); Turner, Scribes and Scholars, 256261; E.G. Turner, Roman Oxyrhynchus,JEA 38 (1952): 7893; Peter Parsons, Copyists of Oxyrhynchus, in A.K. Bowman et al. (eds.),Oxyrhynchus: A City and Its Texts (London: Egypt Exploration Society, 2007), 262270; andJohnson, Bookrolls and Scribes in Oxyrhynchus.

84 Hanes-Eitzen, Guardians of Letters, 39. We have evidence from practice exercises pre-served on Greco-Roman papyri that a single scribe was often capable of writing in verycontrasting styles, ranging from formal bookhand to informal cursive (e.g., P.Oxy. 4669;P.Kln IV.175). We should be careful, therefore, to assume the hand of a particular manuscripttells us everything about the training/ability of the scribe. For more, see Parsons Copyists ofOxyrhynchus, 269270.

85 Hanes-Eitzen, Guardians of Letters, 68. Of course, this is not to suggest that everyChristian manuscript was copied by a professional scribe. Undoubtedly, there would havebeen instances where a non-professional scribe would have undertaken the task of copyinga manuscript; e.g., P72, a codex containing 1 and 2 Peter amongst various other works isclearly copied by a non-professional scribe. In addition, The Shepherd of Hermas recountshow Hermas copied a book himself even though he admits I copied the whole thing, letter byletter, for I could not distinguish between the syllables (2.1.4). It is unclear whether Hermasshould be viewed as typical of Christian practice, but it should be noted that this samepractice also occurred in the Greco-Roman world; e.g., Atticus mentions a scribe that he useson occasion that cannot follow whole sentences but where words must be given syllable bysyllable (Att. 13.25).


named Athenagoras and, at the same time, copied literary texts such asChaereas and Callirhoe.86 Cicero also employed scribes who not onlyreceived dictated letters and copied letters, but also copied various literaryworks; and the scribes were often mentioned by name (Att. 4.16; 12.14; 13.25).One of the earliest Christian uses of such a scribe can be seen in Pauls useof an amanuensis, Tertius, who also is identified by name in Rom 16:22: I,Tertius, the one writing this letter, greet you all in the Lord.87 Thus, thereare reasons to think Christians would have had ready access to professionalscribal assistance, either by way of hiring scribes to do work, by using slaveswho were scribes and owned by well-to-do Christians, or by using scribeswho had converted to Christianity and were willing to provide secretarialassistance. Hanes-Eitzen notes, There is no reason to suppose that liter-ate Christians who wished for copies of literature had substantially differentresources from those of other literate folk in the empire.88 As for whetherprivate (as opposed to commercial) copying would necessitate a drop inquality, Gamble declares, There is no reason to think that commerciallyproduced books were of higher quality than privately made copies. Indeed,frequent complaints suggest they were often worse.89 He goes on to note,The private copyists were as a rule more skilled than those employed bybooksellers.90

2.2. Publication and Circulation of Christian Books

The concept of private copying, as discussed above, can give the impres-sion that all instances of Christian book production were done on a smallscale and done separately and disconnected from each otheras if allscribal activity in early Christianity was a random, haphazard affair.Although we do not have clear evidence that there were established scrip-toriums in the second and third centuries, it would be misleading to suggestthere were no instances during this time where copying happened on alarger scale or within a more highly organized network. Indeed, the earlyand dominant use of the codex and nomina sacra (as discussed above)already inclines us to recognize that early Christian book production (and

86 Hanes-Eitzen, Guardians of Letters, 32.87 In several other places, Paul mentions portions of the letter are in his own hand (

non-matching parenthesis1 Cor

16:21; Gal 5:11; Col 4:18; 2 Thess 3:17, showing that the prior portions were written by a scribe(Richards, Secretary in the Letters of Paul, 172175).

88 Hanes-Eitzen, Guardians of Letters, 40.89 Gamble, Books and Readers, 91.90 Gamble, Books and Readers, 93; emphasis mine.


distribution) may have had a more integrated and collaborative structurethan we might otherwise have assumed. Let us consider a number of otherfactors that support this contention.

First, even within the letters of Paul, we witness a remarkably well-structured network for the copying and dissemination of early Christianwritings. Paul sent his letters through friends or associates to be deliv-ered to the various churches under his care (e.g., Rom 16:1; Eph 6:21; Col4:7), and regularly asked that they be read publicly to the church (e.g.,2 Cor 2:9; Col 4:16; 1 Thess 5:27).91 This public reading was analogous tothe recitatio in the Greco-Roman world where a book was read aloud togroups and acquaintances as a form of publishing it to wider communi-ties.92 Moreover, it seems Paul expected his letters to be copied and cir-culated amongst the churches. For example, Galatians is addressed to aregion of churches, the churches of Galatia, and Romans is addressed toall Gods beloved in Rome, which would likely have included many smallerchurches. It is unlikely that each of these sub-churches received the orig-inal letter of Paul; undoubtedly copies were made. Also, Paul expresslyasks that his letter to the Colossians be passed along to the Laodiceans,presumably by making copies (Col 4:16). Such a scenario reveals a fairlyimpressive network of churches that would have been actively copyingand distributing Pauls letters, even within Pauls own lifetime. In addi-tion, recent studies have shown that Paul would have undoubtedly pos-sessed copies of his own letters, as was common in the Greco-Roman world,and may have even published one of the earliest collections of his let-ters.93

A second example can be found in the Shepherd of Hermas where Hermasreceives the following instructions:

91 For discussion of reading books in early Christian worship, see Martin Hengel, TheTitles of the Gospels and the Gospel of Mark, in Studies in the Gospel of Mark (London: SCMPress, 1985), 6484. See also Justin Martyr, 1 Apol. 67.3.

92 Gamble, Books and Readers, 84.93 E. Randolph Richards, The Codex and the Early Collection of Pauls Letters, BBR 8

(1998): 151166; David Trobisch, Pauls Letter Collection: Tracing the Origins (Minneapolis:Fortress, 1994); Gamble, Books and Readers, 100101. Cicero illumines the Greco-Romanpractice of keeping copies of (and even publishing) ones own letters, There is no collectionof my letters, but Tiro has about seventy, and some can be got from you. Those I ought tosee and correct, and then they may be published (Att. 16.5.5). Also, as Plutarch records, afterAlexander set fire to his secretarys tent he regretted the fact that all the copies of his letterswere destroyed; so much so that he sent new letters to various people asking for copies ofthe letters he had originally sent (Eum. 2.23).


And so, you will write two little books, sending one to Clement and one toGrapte. Clement will send his to the foreign cities, for that is his commission.But, Grapte will admonish the widows and orphans. And you will read yoursin the city, with the presbyters who lead the church. (Hermas 2.4.3)

This passage reveals an impressively organized system for publication anddistribution of Christian literature, likely by the early second century.94 Aftermaking two copies of the revelation he has received (two little books),Hermas is to give those copies to two selected individuals who will thenmake copies for their constituencies, while Hermas takes the book to hisown constituency (the presbyters). It is clear that Clement and Grapte aresecretaries or correspondents of sorts given the special task of making surethese texts are copied and distributed (for that is his commission).95 Infact, Gamble refers to Clements role here as an ecclesiastical publisher, astanding provision in the Roman church for duplicating and distributingtexts to Christian communities elsewhere.96 And if Rome retained such asystem for copying, publishing, and circulating Christian literature, thenwe might reasonably expect other major Christian centers like Jerusalem,Alexandria, and Caesarea to have similar structures.97

Third, we learn more about early publication and circulation practices inthe early second-century letter of Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna to the Philip-pians to which he attached the collected letters of Ignatius.98 The historicaldetails surrounding this letter from Polycarp tell us that after Ignatius hadwritten various letters to churches (some of which he wrote from Smyrna),

94 For discussion of the date of the Shepherd, see The Apostolic Fathers (trans. Bart D. Ehr-man; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 2:165169.

95 It is unclear whether or not the Clement here is intended to be an allusion to thewriter of 1 Clement. Regardless, it is clear that this individual is charged with the copyingand distribution of books, whether he does it himself or has scribes at his disposal who willperform the task. Either way, a well-established publishing network is still visible here.

96 Gamble, Books and Readers, 109; emphasis mine.97 The fact that these major Christian centers contained established Christian libraries

makes publication and copying resources all the more likely. For example, the library atCaesarea was established by the early third century (Jerome, Vir. ill. 112; Eusebius, Hist.eccl. 7.32.25), and contained extensive resources for copying, editing, and publishing biblicalmanuscripts (some colophons in biblical manuscripts, like Sinaiticus, indicate manuscriptswere collated and corrected there even by Pamphilus and Eusebius themselves). Jerusalemalso contained a library by the early third century (Hist eccl. 6.20.1), and most likely Alexan-dria as well (as can be seen by the extensive literary work and possible catechetical schoolin Alexandria under Pantaenus, Clement, and Origen; Hist. eccl. 5.10, 6.3.3). For more discus-sion, see Gamble, Books and Readers, 155159.

98 For dating and other introductory detail, see Ehrman, The Apostolic Fathers, 2:324331.


the following occurred within a very short frame of time:99 (i) the Philippianssent a letter to Polycarp asking for a copy of Ignatiuss letters and also sentalong another letter for Polycarp to forward onto Antioch (Phil. 13.12); (ii)next Polycarp collected the epistles of Ignatius and had them copied; (iii)then Polycarp sent a letter back to the Philippians with a copy of Ingatiussletter collection; (iv) and finally, at the same time, Polycarp forwarded a let-ter from the Philippians onto Antiochsomething he appeared to be doingfor many churches (Phil. 13.12).100 This dizzying amount of literary trafficraises two important points: (a) Smyrna appears to have been a veritablebeehive of activity in regard to letter-writing, copying, and distribution,showing that they not only had the scribal infrastructure to handle thissort of activity, but an ecclesiastical network between churches that madesuch activity a necessity.101 (b) Given the short time frame in which Poly-carp was able to collect Ignatius seven letters, it appears this could onlyhave been done if Polycarp already had copies of the letters that Ignatiushad sent from Smyrna when the Philippians made their request. This sug-gests that when Ignatius originally wrote from Smyrna, copies of his lettersmust have been made before they were sent out (and those copies werethen stored at Smyrna).102 Indeed, this is suggested by Polycarps statementthat he is sending not only the letters that [Ignatius] sent to us but allthe others we had with us (Phil. 13.1). Not only does this scenario suggestthat Smyrna was somewhat of a publishing hub, but it reflects a similarpattern that we saw in Pauls epistlesauthors often made copies of theirletters before they were sent so that later collections could be made andpublished.

Fourth, we continue to learn about the transmission and publicationof early Christian books in the account of the scribal resources availableto Origen in Alexandria in the early third century. According to Eusebius,Ambrose had supplied Origen with a well-staffed literary team includingseven shorthand-writers many copyists [and] girls skilled in pen-manship (Hist. eccl. 6.23.2). It appears that Ambrose supplied this liter-ary team so that Origens work could be extensively copied, corrected, and

99 Gamble suggests no more than a couple of weeks (Books and Readers, 110).100 Apparently the Phillipians request to have Polycarp forward a letter to Antioch was

part of a larger pattern of churches sending letters to Polycarp to forward to Antioch. Theseletters were being sent at the behest of Ignatius who asked that letters be sent to Antioch(Smyrn. 11.3).

101 Gamble, Books and Readers, 112.102 Gamble, Books and Readers, 110111.


published for the benefit of the churchwhich undoubtedly explains Ori-gens impressive level of literary production. Although it is possible thatOrigens situation was entirely unique, it is not hard to imagine that sim-ilar publication centers would have existed elsewhere. Surely Ambrosewas not the only Christian with financial means who had an interest inseeing Christian books produced in greater quantities. It would be quite nat-ural to think that Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian and other Christian leadersmay have enjoyed similar resources.103 Moreover, if such resources would beallocated to make sure Origens works were adequately copied, it seems rea-sonable to think that similar, or even greater, levels of resources would havebeen employed (at least in some instances) by Christians in the copying ofbooks they considered to be Scripture.104

Fifth, the voluminous literary production and distribution at Oxyrhyn-chus in the second and third centuriesdemonstrated by the vast dis-coveries of papyri at that siteindicate the likelihood that the Christiancommunity there possessed substantial resources for copying, editing, andpublishing.105 Remarkably, Oxyrhynchus has provided over 40 % of our NewTestament papyri (more than any other single location), covering at least15 of our 27 New Testament books,106 and many of these papyri date to

103 Indeed, a number of details suggest this possibility. Irenaeus produced Adversus haere-ses in multiple stages and yet it found its way around the empire quite rapidly in its com-pleted form, suggesting substantial scribal and publishing resources in Gaul (more on thisbelow). The third edition of Tertullians work, Adversus Marcionem, so quickly replaced theprior two editions that it must have been copied quickly and in great quantities, suggestingagain that substantial publishing resources must have been available in Carthage to publishsuch a lengthy work in this fashion (Gamble, Books and Readers, 121). As for Cyprian, notonly were his collected works published soon after his deathaccounting for why so manysurvivedbut he seemed to promote the copying and dissemination of works during hisown lifetime (Ep. 32), again implying a degree of scribal resources at his disposal.

104 Although the extent of the canon was not yet resolved by the end of the second century,by that time there was a core set of New Testament books that would have been highlyesteemed and regarded as Scripture alongside the Old Testament. See, Justin Martyr, 1 Apol.67.3; Barton, Spirit and the Letter, 18; Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament, 254.

105 Eldon J. Epp, The New Testament Papyri at Oxyrhynchus in their social and intellec-tual context, in William L. Petersen (ed.), Sayings of Jesus: Canonical and Non-Canonical(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997), 4768; Peter M. Head, Some Recently Published NT Papyri FromOxyrhynchus: An Overview and Preliminary Assessment, TynBul 51 (2000): 116. For moreon the site of Oxyrhynchus as a whole, see AnneMarie Luijendijk, Greetings in the Lord:Early Christians in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008);P.J. Parsons, et al. (eds.), Oxyrhynchus: A City and Its Texts (London: Egypt Exploration Soci-ety, 2007); Turner, Roman Oxyrhynchus, 7893.

106 Epp, The New Testament Papyri at Oxyrhynchus, 52. According to Peter Head, therewere 47 New Testament papyri from Oxyrhynchus when the total count was 115 (Some


the second or third centuries.107 Oxyrhynchus has also provided numerousnon-biblical Christian writings from this time period such as the Gospel ofThomas (P.Oxy. 1, 654, 655), an unknown gospel (P.Oxy. 1224), the Gospel ofMary (P.Oxy. 3525, P.Ryl. III.463), the Gospel of Peter (P.Oxy. 2949, 4009108),the Sophia Jesu Christi (P.Oxy. 1081), Shepherd of Hermas (P.Oxy. 404, 1828,3527, 3528), Irenaeus, Against Heresies (P.Oxy. 405), an anti-Jewish dialogue(P.Oxy. 2070), and many other Christian works, suggesting that Oxyrhyn-chus was likely a Christian intellectual center.109 In addition to Christianwritings, the extensive publication capacity at Oxyrhynchus is also mani-fested in the vast amounts of non-Christian literary texts also discoveredthere such as Aristotle, Demosthenes, Herodotus, Homer, Plato, Plutarch,Sophocles, Thucydides, and many othersall of which date in the firstor second centuries.110 So compelling is the intellectual and literary envi-ronment at Oxyrhynchus that Roberts was led to declare that a Christian

Recently Published NT Papyri, 6). With the addition of P.Oxy. 4803, 4804, 4805, 4806, 4844,and 4845, the total count of New Testament papyri from Oxyrhynchus is 53. Thus, 53 outof the overall 124 New Testament papyri come from Oxyrhynchus (42 %). Of course, this isjust an approximate number because it does not account for the fact that some of the morerecently discovered papyri are actually portions of prior known manuscripts (e.g., P.Oxy.4405 is a new portion of P77). Though done at an earlier point, this same percentage isreached by Eldon Jay Epp, The Oxyrhynchus New Testament Papyri: Not Without HonorExcept in Their Hometown?, JBL 123 (2004): 12. When one considers the fact that manyof our NT papyri have unknown provenances (e.g. P52), and may have actually come fromOxyrhynchus, then this percentage could be even higher.

107 E.g., relatively recent Oxyrhynchus discoveries P.Oxy. 4403 and 4404 contain notice-able serifs and consequently have been dated to the late second/early third century.

108 Dieter Lhrmann, P.Oxy. 2949: EvPet 35 in einer Handschrift des 2/3 Jahrhunderts,ZNW 72 (1981): 216226; Dieter Lhrmann, P.Oxy. 4009: Ein neues Fragment des Petruse-vangeliums?, NovT 35 (1993): 390410. Recently, the identification of these fragments withthe Gospel of Peter has been challenged by Paul Foster, Are there any Early Fragments of theSo-Called Gospel of Peter?, NTS 52 (2006): 128.

109 Roberts, Manuscript, 24 n5. For a more detailed catalogue of Oxyrhynchus papyri, seeJulian Krger, Oxyrhynchos in der Kaiserzeit: Studien zur Topographie und Literaturrezeption(Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1990).

110 Epp, The New Testament Papyri at Oxyrhynchus, 60. The documentary papyri dis-covered at Oxyrhynchus continue to support the idea that there was extensive copying andpublishing of literary works at this site; e.g., P.Lond.inv. 2110, a second-century letter likelyfrom Oxyrhynchus, details payments to a scribe for copying literary works. Roberts declaresthat this letter (and others like it) suggests there was a good deal of actual copying of classi-cal texts, perhaps in a scriptorium or a library, at Oxyrhynchus itself (Roman Oxyrhynchus,90). This is supported by the vast amount of papyrus sold at Oxyrhynchus as shown by otherdocumentary papyri (e.g, P.Oxy. 1142, 1727). Dirk Obbink declares that the Oxyrhynchuspapyri abundantly provide the basis for concluding that it was a lively center of learn-ing in the first four centuries ad (Readers and Intellectuals, in Oxyrhynchus: A City and ItsTexts, ed. A.K. Bowman, et al. [London: Egypt Exploration Society, 2007], 281).


scriptorium at Oxyrhynchus was not unlikely by the time we reach thethird century.111 Whether or not we want to call this a scriptorium alongwith Roberts is unclear; however, the extensive archaeological evidence atOxyrhynchus at least suggests that in the second and third centuries therewas a substantially developed system for copying, publishing and distribut-ing early Christian literature.112

These five examplesand many others could be addedpoint towardsa publishing environment within the first three centuries of the Christianmovement that, while not necessarily at the level of scriptoria, is never-theless quite organized, developed, and intentional. Such a reality is borneout by the early evidence for the rapid dissemination of Christian literaturewithin these centuries. P.Oxy. 405, a copy of Against Heresies by Irenaeusdated to the late second century, was discovered in Egypt only about 20years after its initial composition in Gaul in c. 180. Likewise, the Shepherdof Hermas which was composed in Rome in the mid-second century wasdiscovered in Egypt in a late-second century manuscript (P.Mich. 130).113 P52was discovered in Egypt and dates to only a few years after the original com-position in the late first century.114 It is precisely this rapid disseminationthat sets Christian literature apart from its Greco-Roman counterpartsChristians enjoyed an expansive and well-established network of churches,groups, and individuals that were not only interested in the copying andpublication of Christian writings but apparently had the means at their dis-posal for that publication to take place.115

111 Roberts, Manuscript, 24.112 A further illustration of this literary environment amongst Christians at Oxyrhynchus

is the fourth-century Christian letter (P.Oxy. 4365) detailing the exchange of books betweenChristiansin this case the deuterocanonical books of Jubilees and 4 Ezraevidently for thesake of knowledge and personal study. Though this letter is a little later than our targeteddate range (second and third centuries), it is still illustrative of the overall Oxyrhynchusenvironment from the perspective of Christian documentary papyri. For more discussion, seeEpp, The Oxyrhynchus New Testament Papryi, 2131; and Thomas Kraus, The Lending ofBooks in the Fourth Century C.E.P.Oxy. LXIII 4365A Letter on Papyrus and the ReciprocalLending of Literature Having Become Apocryphal, in Thomas Kraus, Ad Fontes: OriginalManuscripts and Their Significance for Studying Early ChristianitySelected Essays (TENTS 3;Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2007), 185206.

113 For more on this text, see Campbell Bonner, A New Fragment of the Shepherd ofHermas, Michigan Papyrus 44, HTR 20 (1927): 105116.

114 The rapid dissemination of P52 becomes even more impressive if one adopts the earlierdate of ce 100 defended by K. Aland, Neue neutestamentliche Papyri II, NTS 9 (19621963):303316.

115 Gamble, Books and Readers, 140141. For more on the circulation of ancient manu-scripts, see Epp, New Testament Papyrus Manuscripts and Letter Carrying in Greco-RomanTimes, 3556.


3. Conclusion

The above survey, although far too brief and limited in scope, reveals thatearliest Christianity was not a religion concerned only with oral traditionor public proclamation, but was also shaped by, and found its identitywithin, a vivid textual culture committed to writing, editing, copying, anddistributing Christian books, whether scriptural or otherwise. When theform and structure of these books is considered, and not just the contentwithin, a more vivid picture of the early Christian literary culture beginsto emerge. From a very early point, Christians not only had an interest inbooks, but had a relatively well-developed social and scribal networkas seen in conventions like the codex and nomina sacrawhereby thosebooks could be copied, edited, and disseminated throughout the empire.Indeed, it is just this rapid transfer of literature that set early Christians apartfrom their surrounding Greco-Roman world, and set the early church on thepath toward eventually establishing a collection of canonical books thatwould form the churchs literary foundation for generations to come.

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